Dr Ronald Stiffler SEC technology

[itsu]

Hi Itsu,

You did succeed in making things clearer with your kind tests. This setup looks simple, yet needs background knowledge and some useful pieces of measuring instrument to explore it and still there surely remain areas to be explored and understood.

When an L3 coil is driven by an FG at the correct quarter wave frequency, a voltage maximum develops at the top of the coil, this is the basic desirable situation.  Now if a second identical L3 is driven from the top of the first L3, then how the voltage maximum changes on the first and how it can develop on the top of the second L3:  the desirable situation would be that the second L3 could enhance the voltage to a higher level than what is on the top of the first L3. Like a "two stage amplifier" would do it. I am not sure yet whether this can be done, this is why I mentioned for this case the individual checking of the two coils with both ferromagnetic and Alu or copper cores.   
I can be wrong with this, of course.

A sidenote: why the Doc used a resistor to connect the two L3 coils in series, why not directly?  Maybe to reduce current between the two coils hence the loading influence.

Anyway, thanks for your efforts.

Gyula

Gyula,

i did some test using my VU-avramenko meter which shows the presents and relative strength of RF.
It shows that the first L3 coil builds up its RF from base (0) to top (max) pointing to a ¼ wave.
Then the second L3 coil continues the build up RF from the first L3 level at its base to double at its top,
also pointing to a ¼ wave, see video.

The shorting of the 100 Ohm resistor does not change things.

video here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8A8l4Sze-w

I also was testing this dual L3 setup using my Spectrum Analyzer with Tracking Generator to see what the frequency
response was (9Khz - 50MHz).
It shows 2 peaks, one at 3.4Mhz, and one at 23mhz.

Not shure how this fits into the picture, but it shows that this setup has some specific frequency responses.
I used the leds minus as the return for the SA/TG, but using the white cliplead (attached to the ledstrip back) far
end shows a similar response.

Itsu

[gyulasun]

Okay, what the field strength indicator shows as an ever increasing voltage amplitude up to the top of the 2nd L3 coil seems convincing: you have the quarter wave resonance, when the two coils are not wound continuously into a single continuous winding but a certain separation splits it up into two separate windings. 
I noticed as if the field strength around the 1st L3 coil reduced, when you shorted the 100 Ohm: your VU meter did not show the half scale deflection at the end of the 1st L3, maybe you did not touch the diodes wire to the enamelled (i.e. insulated) coil wire close enough like earlier? But when you continued to the start of the 2nd L3 the half scale deflection returned. You surely checked this more than once that in this respect the resistor has no (visible) role.
You may have checked this also when did the frequency sweep with the tracking generator I suppose, in theory the 100 Ohm may reduce the Q quality factor of the two coils.
By the way, the two peaks are interesting and are rather far from each other, where do they come from, what creates them? If you space the two coils at a higher distance from each other, do these peaks change in frequency? Or you insert a ferrit piece into one of the coils do the peaks change?  Sorry to advise some further tasks for you...   
Thanks for all you are doing.
Gyula

[Lidmotor]

Itsu and Gyula--- This latest setup by Doc is a lot like the experiment I did back in July and posted a video on.  I used two L3 coils that were slightly different.  One was driven by my function generator at 13.6MHz and the other was at the LED panel at the end of a long single wire.  He watches my videos and might have gotten the idea that way.  The resistor was probably put in to measure a voltage drop to get an amperage reading.  The reason I put the second coil in was that it increased the voltage at the LED panel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYodoX-lf7w

What is a mystery to me is how he is going to eliminate the long wire by just using an earth ground.  I'm really looking forward to that.

--Lidmotor

[Slider2732]

Thanks for all the info Brad and Gyula.

Have done some tests this afternoon and, as usual things are abysmal 
I was at 1ft separation and then realised i'd got the power source in my hand. Dropping it extinguished the receiver output.
Am using a 3.7V to 5V converter, out to the variable booster to run at 9V for the moment. MPS6834 seems to do a better job than an MPSA06, because with the other the SEC 18 LED doesn't come on when the L3 is connected to the ground. The MPS6834 will be used until it kills itself with heat, which seems to be another trait of outdoors running. 40mA is the average current draw.
What I seem to find is that tuning to the highest power draw also shows the best receiver output.

12V at 3A is about where things may start working, that's my thinking. Oh and a decent storm. Can't tickle the ground and am sure those worms don't exit laughing !


Update - another observation. I thought my ground was disconnected from the wire up to ground level.
Have got 4x 8ft copper or steel pipes buried in a square for the Dollard radio challenge, so tried another that I never did do properly. It's not far below ground level but was ideal for testing this. It still didn't work.
Corrosion ?
Nope. Connecting the receiver board directly to it, with the SEC 18 clip leaded to the actual pipe and completely nothing 
What's the mass of the pipe doing to kill everything ?
Is it a huge difference in frequencies going on ? perhaps the large ground pulls down the resonance of the SEC 18 to 400Hz or something.
Will try a regular AV plug.

Short video explanation and demonstration.
https://youtu.be/8ejFmOG7NLc

[tinman]

Thanks for all the info Brad and Gyula.

Have done some tests this afternoon and, as usual things are abysmal 
I was at 1ft separation and then realised i'd got the power source in my hand. Dropping it extinguished the receiver output.
Am using a 3.7V to 5V converter, out to the variable booster to run at 9V for the moment. MPS6834 seems to do a better job than an MPSA06, because with the other the SEC 18 LED doesn't come on when the L3 is connected to the ground. The MPS6834 will be used until it kills itself with heat, which seems to be another trait of outdoors running. 40mA is the average current draw.
What I seem to find is that tuning to the highest power draw also shows the best receiver output.

12V at 3A is about where things may start working, that's my thinking. Oh and a decent storm. Can't tickle the ground and am sure those worms don't exit laughing !


Update - another observation. I thought my ground was disconnected from the wire up to ground level.
Have got 4x 8ft copper or steel pipes buried in a square for the Dollard radio challenge, so tried another that I never did do properly. It's not far below ground level but was ideal for testing this. It still didn't work.
Corrosion ?
Nope. Connecting the receiver board directly to it, with the SEC 18 clip leaded to the actual pipe and completely nothing 
What's the mass of the pipe doing to kill everything ?
Is it a huge difference in frequencies going on ? perhaps the large ground pulls down the resonance of the SEC 18 to 400Hz or something.
Will try a regular AV plug.

Short video explanation and demonstration.
https://youtu.be/8ejFmOG7NLc

Slider

A quick experiment.

Place a cap-say 100uF between the ground wire,and the output on your circuit-negative of cap to ground.
Put a DMM across the cap polarity correct,and switch on the circuit,and see which way the cap charges--see if things are the way they should be 

Take note of that grass your circuit is sitting on,and the capacitive coupling between your batteries and grass blades.

Who wants to take a guess at which way the cap will charge 


Brad